Grazing Animals: The Linchpin for Antifragile Grasslands
Grasslands are adapted to intense animal impact. So what happens when we remove grazing animals from our food system? We have an ecological disaster.
Summary: Intense, short-term trampling, and manuring by grazing animals is a natural part of how ecosystems function in arid and seasonally dry environments, such as grasslands. Removing grazers damages these ecosystems, which depend on disturbance by grazing animals to perform vital functions such as mulching soil and planting seeds. Intense trampling that mimics the effects of wild herds has proven effective at healing environmental damage in grasslands and deserts.
Grasslands are adapted to intense animal impact. So what happens when we remove grazing animals from our food system? We have an ecological disaster.
Of the 1.9 billion acres in the lower 48 United States, grasslands historically occupied about one billion of them, yet only about 350 million acres remain. Across the world, grasslands and grazing animals evolved together.
We often hear of how improperly grazed grasses become unhealthy, but that’s only part of the story.
In reality, idle grasslands, devoid of grazers, actually degrade, too; whereas properly grazed lands become healthier.
This concept is often lost on people: some degree of stress makes certain systems stronger and healthier.
Internal combustion engines, computers, and sidewalk-sensitive AirPods tend to malfunction or break when stressed.
Economies, ecosystems, and living organisms build resiliency with properly applied stress and challenge.
Grasslands, home to a multitude of both plants and animals, need proper stress - not too much, as we hear in overgrazing, but not too little, which doesn’t make the headlines when we remove animals from the landscape.
When managed well, grasslands provide crucial ecosystem services, sequester carbon, absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen, filter and store water, provide a home to thousands of species, and, when grazed, convert cellulose (a substance we can’t digest) into high-quality, nutrient-dense (and digestible) protein.
Unhealthy grasslands, or grasslands that we’ve lost and continue to lose to row cropping, can do less or none of these.
North America has a fertile breadbasket not because farmers have been growing wheat or corn for thousands of years; it was because of the 30+million bison and other ruminants grazing and fertilizing the soil, driving the solar-fueled process that is typical of grasslands.
Without ruminants chomping, stressing the grass to grow stronger and develop more antifragile root systems, it just grows to a point, oxidizes, and dies. When ruminants must move (from predators or by a rancher guiding them to a new area), they eat only the top portion of the grass, which maintains the root mass and limits overgrazing.
Perennial grasses, which are common in grasslands, have deeper root systems and are often a part of a latent seed bank, seeds that have been dormant until favorable conditions arise before reemerging and growing. As ruminants chomp, stomp, and defecate, they inoculate the soil with nutrients and microbes and increase moisture thereby increasing the underground biodiversity, leading to a more resilient soil profile - one which can “unlock” these latent seeds.
Modern voices, through good intentions, but unfortunate misunderstandings, often encourage us to ignore grasslands, or worse - convert them to cropland. This has constructed a food system that is too chemically dependent and dangerously close to disaster.
We not only eliminate hundreds of species through neglect or to make room for a single crop, but we also become even more dependent on chemical inputs to fertilize the soil and to kill anything that could take over the crop. In the process, we kill more insects, mice, birds, and other animals; we destroy the soil, causing these chemicals to runoff into rivers, killing fish and the animals that depend on those fish.
Growing food is a biological process that we’ve turned into a chemical one. Not only is this system risky, but it’s literally blowing the soil from beneath our feet.
As more reliable carbon sinks than forests, we need to keep grasslands healthy, and we can’t do that without grazing animals.
Without the millions of bison and other ruminants that once grazed these lands, cattle are uniquely suited to help protect, regenerate, and maintain grasslands.
“At the end of the day, we’re turning more sunlight into more growing plants, and then we’re putting those plants through an animal that we hope makes us a salable product,” says Dan Probert, owner of Lightning Creek Ranch in northeast Oregon, where he grazes cattle regeneratively to protect and restore the Zumwalt prairie.
If our goal is to build an antifragile food system, does it make sense to eliminate animals? Is supporting the monocrop- and chemical-intensive intellectual property (disguised as a meat alternative) of a select few multinational corporations better than building a resilient food system that relies more on photosynthesis and less on fossil fuels?
By maintaining grasslands, we can reap the rewards of healthier soils, which can grow more food, hold more water, break down pollutants, prevent erosion, etc. From a carbon offset perspective, monetizing grazing practices that store reliable rates of carbon could more effectively meet states' or companies' emission-reduction goals while providing a better livelihood for millions of ranchers across the globe.
Additional Resources:
Listen: In this episode of STEM-Talk, Allan Savory sits down with co-hosts Robb Wolf and Ken Ford to talk about the global importance of restoring the earth's grasslands. Savory is an ecologist and the president of the Savory Institute, which promotes large-scale restoration of the world’s grassy ecosystems through holistic management.
Read: Steven Rinella’s American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon is a poignant take on the role of the bison in our national history and present. Rinella, now known as the “Meateater,” goes through the journey of a modern bison hunt starting with finding a bison skull, but also re-tells the story of the bison and their tragic fall.
Listen: In this episode of Food by Design, Sandeep Pahuja weaves between conversations with ranchers and soil scientists to unpack the ways in which farmers can lead the charge against global warming. Loren and Lisa Poncia, who own and operate Stemple Creek Ranch in Marin County, discuss the potential for regenerative techniques like rotational grazing to generate a net negative impact on emissions. By systematically moving livestock through open pastures, the Poncia’s are able to mimic what happened in the Great Plains hundreds of years ago with herds of wild bison. In doing so, ruminants - including cattle, sheep, and goats - serve as one of our best soil management tools: grazing on the grass in front of them, stomping and churning the land below them, and fertilizing the grass behind them with natural manure. Listen to learn more about how US farmers can play a critical role in transitioning our food system towards one that produces more nutritious food while removing more carbon than it emits.
Eat: Ready, set, steak! Wholesome Meats is proud to support a network of local, Carbon Ranchers who use a host of regenerative practices to produce high-quality beef products. Check out this link to get beef that heals the planet, delivered to your doorstep. Don’t forget to use the code “BIG15” at checkout to receive 15% off your next order.
Disclaimer: The Regeneration Weekly receives no compensation or kickbacks for brand features - we are simply showcasing great new regenerative products.
If you have any products you would like to see featured, please respond to this newsletter or send an email to meg(at)soil.works
The Regeneration is brought to you by Wholesome Meats | Soilworks | Grassroots Carbon| Grazing Lands
Exactly right, don’t fix what ain’t broken. The people who believe that vegetable protein is the only way to feed the entire population, due to it’s efficiency, are not seeing the whole picture. Ruminants have been an integral part of soil development. Cultivating the soil has broken up the soil cycle, the vast network of critters in the soil that make it work. Regenerative farming/ ranching is simply allowing nature to do it’s thing. Humans can enhance that process. There is an unstoppable reset in nature imminent, let’s be ready for it.
This is such a great article and it is so important, I fully agree.